And so it came to pass that Martha Levinson and Dowager Countess Violet finally came face to face at Downton Abbey. As Lady Mary and Matthew Crawley’s wedding loomed, the long-awaited encounters of the two grande dames did not disappoint.

Across the dinner table or in a church pew, they were like a pair of grizzled gunslingers, trading acid quips instead of bullets. Not so painful perhaps, but almost as deadly.

‘Oh dear,’ cried Martha, pouncing on Maggie Smith’s Violet in the hallway and gleefully eyeing up her wrinkles. ‘The war has made old women of us both.’

Making an entrance: Shirley Maclaine as Martha Levinson in the third series of Downton Abbey, set in 1920

‘Oh no,’ Violet begged to differ. ‘I stay out of the sun.’

In the delirious new series of Downton Abbey, which began last night, Martha (Shirley MacLaine) came crunching down the drive at last. She was wearing jazz shoes, what appeared to be a fur papoose and a frozen expression on her face. We’d better get to like it — it’s the only one she’s got.

As Lady Grantham’s American mother, Martha’s job is to patronise the English and their stuffy ways at every opportooonity. Hey, someone has to show these squares that the egalitarian delights of the New World, with its lack of pretence and stifling tradition, are the way forward.

‘Tradition!’ she sneers regularly, in the finest showbiz tradition.

She insists upon boiled water and goat’s milk at all times, but I must say Shirley’s little dolly face seems slightly out of place amid the lush velvets and sprinkling of aristocratic Downton dust. Did they even have Botox and crafty pearly highlighter in them days

Shirl also seems to be acting to a different beat, but maybe she gets her stage directions on a time loop straight from Cecil B. DeMille himself Who can say, but she is certainly a delicious target for Violet to be horrid about.

Aid: Alfred, played by Matt Milne, is seen helping Martha out of a vehicle in the sumptuous setting

‘When I am with her, I am reminded of the virtues of the English,’ she said.

But Martha isn’t English, someone protested. ‘Quite,’ replied Violet, who later added that Martha is ‘like a homing pigeon, she finds our underbelly every time’. Is that what homing pigeons do

She was wearing jazz shoes, what appeared to be a fur papoose and a frozen expression on her face. We’d better get to like it — it’s the only one she’s got

Meanwhile, hang onto your inheritance, kids, for there is trouble looming. We know the Wall Street Crash is just a few years away, but Lord Grantham’s in the soup already.

He had to go up to London on the 2.30 train to see Somebody In An Office Wearing A Fobwatch. This can only mean one thing.

You see, the dopey Earl invested all of his wife’s money in something called the Canadian Grand Trunk Line — and it has only gorn off the rails!

‘Are you really telling me all the money has gone The lion’s share of Cora’s fortune’ he shouted, as Fobwatch nodded sadly.

Inspecting her surroundings: Martha looks around as the the much-loved Downton characters return

‘I refuse to be the failure, the Earl who dropped the torch and let the flame go out. I have a duty beyond saving my own skin,’ he said, munching through the freshly steamed script like a hungry termite.

You know, I’m beginning to think that Cora might be a little mad. It’s not just that simpering smile. Maybe that slip on a bar of soap in series one damaged more than we ever knew

Back at Downton, when he told Cora the bad news, she admonished the silly sausage as if he had merely lost one of his socks, not her hard-inherited millions.

You know, I’m beginning to think that Cora might be a little mad. It’s not just that simpering smile. Maybe that slip on a bar of soap in series one damaged more than we ever knew

Still, the money might have gone but, amazingly, by some kind of well-I-never dramatic osmosis, the earl-in-waiting was thinking of downsizing anyway.

‘To be honest,’ Matthew told his valet, ‘I want to live more simply after the wedding.’

That’s lucky! You know, sometimes the Doctor Who plots are more realistic than the Downton ones, but no one really cares. It is all part of the joy.

And speaking of lost luggage, here comes poor Edith; the plain one, the sister without a mister. Is she forever doomed to wander from drawing room to dining room being bright and brittle and single

And that’s not the only change with Matthew. Why has the pale-eyed Downton dish started wearing too many clothes He is always trundling around in layers and layers of hats, coats, jackets, waistcoats ties, macs, and what have you. He is beginning to look like a packed suitcase.

And speaking of lost luggage, here comes poor Edith; the plain one, the sister without a mister. Is she forever doomed to wander from drawing room to dining room being bright and brittle and single

She has set her jaunty cap at family friend Sir Anthony Strallan, who appears to dance at the other end of the ballroom, if that knowing look at Thomas the evil footman was anything to go by. Still, it’s not as if anyone was rubbing her face in it.

As for the Earl himself, he was struggling to maintain a facade of bonhomie as the reality of his economic disaster came crashing in. ‘Hello Mama, can I tempt you to one of these new cocktails’ he said, waving a martini glass around in an at tempt to pretend everything was tickey-boo.

It all ended with Mary walking down the aisle just about to marry her Matthew, as Martha and Violet jostled together on the pews like two giant chaffinches.

Will the happy couple say I do They are going to keep us guessing until next week, although there were some tender scenes with Matthew and Mary as they stumbled towards the altar like the lovestruck young fools they are

Will the happy couple say I do They are going to keep us guessing until next week, although there were some tender scenes with Matthew and Mary as they stumbled towards the altar like the lovestruck young fools they are.

‘There are a lot of things I am looking forward to,’ he told her, with a very fruity look. Clearly, the old trouser tingle incident is nothing but a faint memory.

Still hovering in the background is a dodgy will, another inheritance, a giant footman, Mrs Patmore’s treacle tarts and a blast from the past. Roll on next Sunday.